


Schism

by Ozalina



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Hawkeye Pierce Whump, Infidelity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:47:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21975313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ozalina/pseuds/Ozalina
Summary: Hawkeye’s breaking apart again, and it breaks BJ a little bit too.
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Comments: 1
Kudos: 30





	Schism

“I can’t do this anymore.”

The floor of the stock room is dusty underneath his hands, the dirt from the compound traipsed in by a million different feet intent upon thermometers and fucking. With a single finger he begins to trace a pattern on the wood. He doesn’t want to look up and see the emotions playing across Hawkeye’s face. It’s a well-worn trail, one that he’s seen so many times, and yet it never fails to hurt him a little bit inside. Hawkeye’s breaking apart again, and it breaks B.J. a little bit too.

“What did it this time?” he mutters softly.

“All of it.” Hawkeye stands, and starts pacing. This space is too small for that, but B.J. lacks the energy to tell him to stop. He’s too tired for an argument, and he’s on shift soon. He would leave right now, if Hawkeye wasn’t in one of his moods and likely to enter a month-long sulk if he perceived an insult. “What’s the point of it all, Beej? Tell me just one thing that’s worth us being here. One thing that’s been worth us being out here, being shot at and killed and trying to –“

The rant goes on, and B.J. lets his eyes fall shut. The sound of Hawkeye’s voice is strangely soothing, even if it’s likely to get them discovered. Someone wandering across the compound, on night patrol or coming off duty from post-op, they’ll hear Hawkeye’s voice and maybe watch the door to see which nurse Hawkeye’s managed to sweet talk this time.

If they discover that it’s B.J., they’ll either suspect some kind of massive prank in the offing, or land closer to the truth and destroy both of their lives.

It’s then that B.J. manages to hurt himself.

“Shit,” he murmurs. It’s enough to stop Hawkeye’s ranting. He pauses in the centre of the room and looks down.

“What?”

“Splinter.” B.J. squints at his finger under the flickering electric light. The wood’s gone in deep, and he’s always had a childish dislike of having to pull them out. It _hurts_. He’s done it to countless kids, but not to himself. On one memorable occasion, he’d even toyed with the idea of leaving the splinter inside his body and just living with the pain.

“Let me see.” Hawkeye bends, falling to his knees, and takes B.J.’s hand in his own. There’s tenderness in the way he turns it, rubbing his thumb across B.J.’s knuckles as he looks at the splinter and judges how best to remove it. And B.J. doesn’t like it. It’s not what he wants or expects from Hawkeye. It’s not the safety of a joking touch, or a passionate embrace. As soon as he tries to jerk away, Hawkeye tightens his grip and looks up with a warning in his eyes.

“Don’t be such a baby, B.J.. Anyone would think you were Erin’s age.”

B.J. freezes. Recently, Hawkeye’s been getting more and more touchy over the subject of B.J.’s family, wandering off in a temper if B.J. gets a letter from home, or starts talking to the Colonel about Peg. But Hawkeye doesn’t move now, just keeps on working on B.J.’s finger. 

B.J. subsides, and watches him. In a way, the fact that his tongue sticks out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrates is rather sweet. Then again, it’s also rather distracting. While he’s too busy staring at Hawkeye’s tongue – trying to think of ways to stop Hawkeye from getting depressed and instead getting him naked – Hawkeye’s already pulled out the splinter, and is squeezing his hand.

“There you go,” he grins. “All better.”

B.J. smiles back, and raises an eyebrow. “Kiss it better?”

Hawkeye raises B.J.’s hand, and presses his dry cracked lips to the injured finger. His tongue darts out, licking the tip, before swirling down to taste the sweat on B.J.’s palm. The groan starts low in B.J.’s throat, and carries on as Hawkeye nips and licks and sucks his way up B.J.’s arm, pushing the sleeve of his jacket up to his shoulder. They hold eye contact until Hawkeye reaches the crook of B.J.’s elbow, and that’s when Hawkeye leans forward and presses his lips to B.J.’s.

Hawkeye’s always been a good kisser, and that holds true even when his mind is spiralling out of control. His tongue darts inside, hand cradling B.J.’s cheek, and the other hand presses to B.J.’s hip. Breathing into Hawkeye’s mouth, B.J. leans back against the shelves, slowly sliding down until he’s lying on the floor, Hawkeye balanced above him. His hair falls down more in this position, falling into his eyes, making him look younger than his years. And B.J. can’t resist it, soft fingers tucking it behind Hawkeye’s ear.

“I want you now,” Hawkeye murmurs, slipping out of his jacket and throwing it behind him. His t-shirt follows, leaving his dogtags to dangle against B.J.’s own chest. “Beej, more naked.”

B.J. chuckles, even while he pulls the rough material of his jacket off his arms. “Hawk, you’re so good with words – shit!”

Hawkeye looks up from under his lashes, grinning wickedly from where he’s just squeezed B.J.’s crotch. “I want to see skin, Captain Hunnicutt.”

“Yes, sir, Captain Pierce, sir…” B.J. gasps. His jacket is still beneath him, and there’s no way he’s going to try and throw it into the corner of the room – firstly, he can’t be bothered with wriggling, and secondly he really doesn’t want splinters in his ass. Even if Hawkeye would probably be more than willing to pull them out. He grasps his pants and pushes them down, a spare hand tracing the way Hawkeye’s ribs stand out on his skin. Hawkeye hisses through his teeth at the cold touch, arching his back and thrusting his hips and tightening his fingers, all in one fluid movement. 

B.J. leans up and licks the hollow of Hawkeye’s throat, tasting the sweat that’s gathered there throughout the day. It tastes of the carbolic soap that they used in the showers earlier, passing it to each other over the wooden partition. B.J. shuts his eyes as Hawkeye lowers his mouth to his chest, kissing and leaving dark wet marks on the cotton. In his mind’s eye, he can see Hawkeye in the shower, as he tips his head back and the water traces slow paths down his long neck. 

He’s thought about doing _this_ in the shower – the soap would make bubbles on their skin, bubbles swallowed as Hawkeye dropped to his knees and licked B.J.’s inner thigh, making B.J. clutch at the shower cord for support. And that would just encourage Hawkeye. Much as he’s doing now, he’d start to nuzzle B.J.’s growing erection, tongue dragging along the underside, eyes dancing as he watches every reaction dance across B.J.’s face.

B.J. forces his eyes open, just as Hawkeye breathes cold air onto the hypersensitive skin he’s just licked. He gasps, and curls his fingers into Hawkeye’s hair. 

“Jesus wept –“

Hawkeye smirks, taking away the promise of his mouth, and rests his cheek on B.J.’s leg. “If Father Mulcahy heard you say that –“

“If he saw this,” B.J. pants, “blasphemy wouldn’t be his first concern.” He tugs on Hawkeye’s head, and the other man comes up willingly. B.J. kisses him. It turns frantic as B.J. shoves his hand down into Hawkeye’s pants, and Hawkeye bucks his hips, moaning and smashing his teeth against B.J.’s. The kiss is messy and sloppy, but B.J. wants and needs more – he wants to forget that he’s in Korea, he wants to forget everything up to and including his own name. 

Maybe Hawkeye understands that, because rather than collapsing onto B.J.’s chest and letting him do all the work he wraps his own hand around B.J.’s erection, and moves his hand in determined strokes. They moan into each other’s mouths, sweat building and making their hands slippery.

B.J. comes first, his keening cry muffled by Hawkeye’s quick lips. He barely notices Hawkeye’s own release, just opens his eyes to realise that the other man is shaking into his shoulder, breath shuddering and catching in his throat.

Hopefully they’ve managed to avoid staining either of their uniforms. B.J. doesn’t really want to have to deal with the questions from whoever’s on laundry duty. 

Hawkeye laughs, breathlessly, and rolls his weight from B.J.’s chest, pulling his pants up with one hand. “Brilliant, Beej. You touch like a geisha from the seediest part of Tokyo.”

“Coming from such a connoisseur,” B.J. mutters, toying with his dogtags, “that’s a mighty compliment.” He glances down at his watch. “Nearly time to go on duty.”

Hawkeye half turns and throws his arm around B.J.’s hip, clutching him tightly. “Come back to the Swamp with me.”

“Charles would come looking.”

“He wouldn’t find you, not in my bed.” The way Hawkeye is gripping is uncomfortable, and yet familiar. It’s the possessive and desperate way Hawkeye acts in the dark of the night, when there’s no one around to see and every bit of raging paranoia seems completely plausible. 

“Even Charles wouldn’t believe you’d be seeing a nurse with these feet.”

Hawkeye shrugs. “Or that moustache. It wouldn’t fit under my blanket.”

B.J. tugs on said moustache, a rueful smile hiding underneath it. Hawkeye moans on and on about the moustache, but the one time B.J. picked up a razor to get rid of it, he’d practically screamed the tent down. “And you know as well as I do that laughter is the best medicine. Would you really stop the patients in post-op from seeing it and getting better?”

“And if I say _I_ need medicine?” He starts to rub small circles on B.J.’s hip with his thumb, and sighs cold air across B.J.’s bare chest. 

“Physician, heal thyself.” B.J. arches his back and stretches, vertebrae clicking into place. “Seriously, Hawk, I need to get dressed.”

Hawkeye scowls as he pushes himself up, tugging his knees in close to himself as he leans against the shelf. “Fine.”

B.J. swears. Now he has to deal with Hawkeye in a mood, and unless he manages to sort this out before he goes on duty, he’ll have no one to talk to for the next week. “Hawkeye, don’t –“

“Don’t what, B.J.?” Hawkeye snaps. His lip curls, and for a moment B.J.’s transported back to a time when Frank was still in camp, and Hawkeye fully despised someone. “Don’t get a little bit teed off when I’m treated like a cheap motel? Quick in, out, jerk it all about, and then run off back to real life?”

B.J. pulls up his pants, settling them around his waist. Fucking Hawkeye, with his goddamn superiority and need to constantly be fighting against _something_. Fucking Hawkeye, with his paranoia that no one could actually really give a damn about him and yet still have their own life. He frowns. “Hawkeye, grow up. I’m not you. I don’t sleep with people I don’t care about.”

Hawkeye barely flinches at the attack, used to comments like that, thrown by B.J. every single time they have an argument. “At least you’ve got a life outside of Korea.” Hawkeye pushes his rapidly greying hair back with a flick of his fingers. “Rather than being thrown back to nothing.”

“Don’t be such an idiot,” B.J. retorts. “You’ll have Crabapple Cove, and your dad, and sniffles and flu instead of shrapnel and subdural haematomas.”

“While you have Peg and Erin and the white picket fence?” Hawkeye sneers. 

B.J. tenses involuntarily, and so does Hawkeye. They avoid each other’s eyes, the silence growing to fill the wooden room. It’s as oppressive as the heat, just as stifling. This wasn’t supposed to be part of the arrangement, at least not in B.J.’s eyes. He cares about Hawkeye. Of course he does. Jesus – they’re two friends, in an impossible situation, and they’re both young men. If B.J. didn’t have Hawkeye then he’d stray elsewhere, and that would be unforgivable. But Hawkeye – that’s different. To B.J., sleeping with Hawkeye is just an extension of their friendship, keeping the two of them sane and together.

Except it’s gone further than that. 

Because he can understand where Hawkeye’s jealousy and stubbornness is coming from. He can see the attraction of pushing the world away, locking the door behind them and staying in the small dark dusty room. Just the two of them. Hawkeye would drive him insane in a matter of hours, but still – when it’s just the two of them, there’s nothing else to worry about. No kids waiting and dying, no army telling what they can do and when they can do it, and there’s no Peg and Erin.

He hates himself for the new lines on Hawkeye’s brow and the extra grey hairs above his ears, and he hates himself for doing this to his wife and child, even as he denies to himself that there’s anything more between him and Hawkeye than there ever was between Hawkeye and that Trapper guy. But if that was true, then the thought of Trapper John McIntyre kissing Hawkeye’s lips and touching Hawkeye’s body wouldn’t make bile twist in B.J.’s stomach. 

“Do you miss Trapper?”

The question, coming after the silence, makes Hawkeye jump, his stare jerking from the tongue depressors on the bottom shelf to B.J.’s face. B.J. can see the indecision – does he answer the question, or force it back to their argument? “Trap? Why?”

“Just answer, Hawkeye.” He sighs, and hugs his knees in close.

Hawkeye shrugs. “Of course I miss him. He was my best friend. I miss Henry too. And Radar. Not like I want them back here. Not even Henry. At least he got out of here before he died.”

“I thought you didn’t want to get out of here,” B.J. mutters. “I thought I was the only thing in your life that mattered.”

There’s a moment when Hawkeye’s defences go down. His face seems to break, and B.J. is filled with disgust for his flippancy. But he can’t keep on doing this – he and Hawkeye shouldn’t be having this stupid affair. He can’t be responsible for two people’s sanity. He knows that eventually the war will end, or one of them will be killed, and this _thing_ between them can’t be allowed to gain too much significance. Because it will end, one way or another. He should have ended it long before, but he’s never been good at enduring sharp sudden pains. 

Hawkeye then slams up his walls, face contorting into a snarl, and in a heartbeat he’s across the room and B.J. can’t move his hands, pinned at the wrist by Hawkeye. “Don’t you get it?” Hawkeye hisses. He tightens his fingers. If it wasn’t the middle of the night, B.J. would kick and scream and throw Hawkeye off, anything to stop this confrontation. As it is, he just tries to avoid the eyes which show far too much. “I love you, B.J..”

“Hawkeye –“

“Don’t you dare patronise me.” Hawkeye leans in further, resting their foreheads together. “You love me too. Or you’d never risk your perfect life and your perfect Peg. Don’t say you don’t.”

When Hawkeye blinks, his eyelashes flutter against B.J.’s own. The intimate gesture is wrong, and he knows that, but a part of his mind files it away for future reference. “It’s not a matter of ‘don’t’,” he says wearily. “I can’t, Hawkeye. You know that.”

Hawkeye snorts, and stands. He stoops to pick up his t-shirt and jacket, and throws them over his shoulder. “So nice of you to tell me.”

The air feels empty and cold when the door swings shut behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this back in 2008/2009, possibly for something which has now been lost in time. But having finally rewatched all of MASH with my partner got me wanting to rewrite this and finally get round to uploading it to AO3 (please tell me if there are any incorrect Americanisms)


End file.
